Sream EDitor | SED

Docs and Resources

SED has a spec by the Open Group. GNU Sed is probably the best sed implementation to date (2022). Read its manual online.

Also see this amazing SED tutorial by Bruce Barnett.

Input data to sed

No need to do cat or echo …​ | sed …​ all the time.

$ sed '' poem1.txt

$ sed '' < poem1.txt

$ < poem1.txt sed ''

Print file contents

November 5, 2022

$ cat file.txt
$ sed '' file.tx (2)
$ sed -n p file.txt (3)
$ sed -n '1,$ p' file.txt (3)

  1. Yeah, we could use cat.

  2. Or use an empty command, which by default (and without -n) just outputs the contents of the pattern space.

  3. Or using -n to avoid auto-printing of the pattern space and explicitly using the p command to print, which prints all the lines if no address is used.

  4. Doing everything explicitly, that is, from line 1 to the last line, print.